Why Your Small Business Should Be Tracking On An International Level

Becoming a global company is an impressive accomplishment. It is not an easy endeavour, especially for a small business, but is often the essential next step in growing your customer base and increasing revenue. So if your business has expanded globally – is it reaching its full potential internationally?
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After the hard work that has been put in to accomplish your business plan to reach global markets, you’ve only achieved the first stage of success. There is still a long way to go to dominate internationally and, as a business owner, you always need to be prepared for any possible challenges yet to be faced. To understand your growing business you’ll need to effectively track the international consumer behaviour towards your brand and measure your marketing performance. How else would you know the areas you need to improve on to reach new customers?
Take a look below to see some easy ways to track your performance internationally:

Online Tracking - Utilising Google Analytics 
According to Marketingland, 48 million websites are using Google Analytics, including Small Business Advice Week. That’s no surprise as it’s recognised as the most powerful tool to measure and analyse web performance. If your business has got to the stage where you have taken it global, you will hopefully have some understanding in how to effectively use Google Analytics to measure your online activity. But it’s now time to review your set up to track your business internationally, here’s how.

• Identify where your online traffic is coming from

Your business now provides its goods or services across multiple locations. You can track where your presence is strongest and in which regions. This will allow you to focus your SEO marketing efforts and optimise your website for these locations to boost your traffic even further and reach your target market. 

​The image above shows the top locations worldwide calculated by the highest number of views to the site (Google Analytics > Audience > GEO > Location). You are also able to filter by the region/city of each location if you wish to narrow your targeting to a specific city. You can also see how many visits you have had from each location as well as new users to the site. By capturing a more detailed understanding of how your website is performing, you can target your SEO to specific locations.  

• Are you converting traffic from overseas?

Measuring your overall conversions will determine the probability of your marketing efforts being successful globally. Using Google Analytics and setting up goals will allow you to better understand how users are interacting with your site. The conversion rate is one of the most important indicators of whether or not your efforts are successful.
Your website will include a variety of actions which new and returning visitors can complete to interact with your business. A conversion (interaction with your site) can be defined in many ways such as phone calls, form submissions, clicking downloads (PDFs) and purchases. In Google Analytics you are able to set up ‘goal tracking’ to measure these interactions more accurately.

Above you can see each location’s conversion rate and goal completion. With this data your business can track which marketing campaigns have increased conversions and ultimately revenue. This will allow you to optimise and improve your site to accommodate a specific location and hopefully   encourage more traffic to visit the site. 

Offline Interactions - International Call Tracking
​Your customers’ journey to purchase will include both online and offline interactions with many transactions still taking place over the telephone. Call tracking software will be crucial for international businesses to identify which channels, campaigns or ads are generating the phone call conversions. Ensure you offer a service for customers which enables them to be able to call you; also remember to include your number on landing pages and in search ads. 

• Call Recording (integrated with call tracking)

When you have expanded internationally and reached out to a new market (as a new brand offering a new product or service), you may face a higher number of calls for various reasons, the most typical are shown below:

1) Consumers needs more information - as your brand may not be well known, consumers may feel that your product/service is confusing or complex and your landing pages are not providing enough information.
 
2) A customer has a question - the call agent can then address the question or concern in real time and use the opportunity to sell or upsell to the customer.
 
3) Customers who are more comfortable over the phone - where you are opening your business to a new market, you may experience an increase in calls whilst people become more familiar with your brand. Some find it easier to talk to a person when completing a transactions.
 
By utilising the call recording system, built within your call tracking software, you can understand your international customers more easily, make improvements to your website and help train employees locally and globally. 

• Tracking calls on a global scale

The call tracking software from Mediahawk provides local and toll free numbers worldwide. This allows each visitor to your site access to a specific telephone number. For example, if a customer calls from France, they will dial a local number, this will be tracked by your call tracking software and as well as tracking the source, medium, keyword and the pages that the customer viewed in real time. With this tool your business can determine which landing pages resulted in generating high volumes of phone calls.
​As you will have the date, details and time of each call you will be able to create detailed reports on the return on investment (ROI) for your individual marketing channels.
By accurately tracking both your online and offline interactions you can measure the performance of your business overseas in real time. This will enable you to invest your marketing budget to grow your business in your strongest areas and improve the customer experience in weaker areas and develop their sales to a higher level.

Small Business Advice Week focuses on small businesses, but with the world becoming smaller and more connected every day, there's no reason why your small business can't go global!